Midair Collision - DC - American Airlines and Blackhawk

I heard it was a green and white dignitary bird; and no reason at all it should be flying through the landing pattern. Some high level govt persons just got wacked
 
Sausage450r said:
I heard it was a green and white dignitary bird; and no reason at all it should be flying through the landing pattern. Some high level govt persons just got wacked
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The news I'm watching said the Blackhawk had three soldiers including the pilots on board and it was a training flight.
 
THD said:
The news I'm watching said the Blackhawk had three soldiers including the pilots on board and it was a training flight.
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Looks like a regular flight crew, pilot, copilot and crew chief on a training flight, bummer.
 
Crazy something like this can happen in this day and age. Very sad situation.
 
Sand Shark said:
Crazy something like this can happen in this day and age. Very sad situation.
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It really is crazy with all the modern day collision avoidance etc?


A B1 bomber crashed as well?

WTF?
 
First off, ATC should of had a choke chain on both of the aircraft 1/2 mile from end of runway.

A/A jet had atleast 5 strokes and was probable lite up and blinking like a christmas tree. The J hawk probably only had 1 red steady maker light on and probably could not be scene from a front view.

A/A jet was flying an approved approch from what I can see on NAV chart and probably on a ILS approch.

The video of the impact looked like the A/A jet was lined up on runway (you can see both landing lights) and J hawk flew in from the left side of screen.

All speculation, but ATC is the main target of investigation in my option.

Just should of never happened...................

What do you say @Mac
 
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Somebody who saw the entire video said there was 38 seconds of time that they were in each other's path.. something really weird here
 
Just scary really, if you ever listen to the air craft frequencies...it's crazy that more don't crash...Again just sad all around.
 
Mac said:
ATC...definitely screwed up, but they were calling out.



Not sure if they had collision avoidance gear or not.

I'm sticking with helicopter crew human factors on this one with a supporting factor of ATC involvement and awareness. In the end, it was people that got other people killed.
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Local talk radio had a pilot on who fly's that model AA plane and said they do have collision avoidance on that plane, It just doesn't work the same below 1000'as it does above, accident happened at 400' .

Latest theory is when Helo had responded they had visual on the AA flight he was looking at something else.
 
The news indicated the "ATC" support for the "DC" airport was 19 people down,
and the one person was directing Helo on one channel, and jet on another.
They both could not hear the other channels.
There's talk about the DEI hiring fiasco. They overlooked White ATC certified
controllers because they were over qualified. WTF?"
 
As a controller, comm with helos is always shit. If I have both on radar (or even procedural w/SA), I'd be directing the fixed wing regardless. No idea what the circumstances actually where but it sucks all the way around.
 
What this will come down to is a series of small errors, that by themselves would not be such a disaster, but when combined together....we have a tragedy. Think about how many times small mistakes on our parts have had us come close.....but we made it because.....that final nail didn't land. The moonless night, training with goggles, understaffed ATC, Overcrowded airspace......I think likely the only people without fault in this are going to end up being the flight crew of the plane. Just sad all around.
 
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JDMeister said:
The news indicated the "ATC" support for the "DC" airport was 19 people down,
and the one person was directing Helo on one channel, and jet on another.
They both could not hear the other channels.
There's talk about the DEI hiring fiasco. They overlooked White ATC certified
controllers because they were over qualified. WTF?"
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Approach is usually on a different channel. This isn’t abnormal.

Watched the ATC videos/radio. To me: ATC called out the CRJ to the 60, but no direction or distance, just that it was on approach to runway 33, which put the onus on the 60 to remember where 33 is and what its approach was.

60’s operating ceiling was 200’, crash happened at 350-400’ ish. 60 was course steady at 200’, but appeared to slow and gain altitude on approach to CRJ’s flight path. I assume pilot realized there might be another jet nearby, and backed off of the cyclic while not backing off collective and gained altitude into CRJ’s flight path.

Been 29 years since my dreams of flyboy-hood were dashed by nearsightedness, so excuse my terms.

What says PFM-boy
@Mac?
 
Thanks @Mac. I assume there will be some definite changes around this airport. I flew into DCA weekly for 6 months on a project, it's a shit show. Approach changes, 57 gajillion bases nearby all with helicopters or fixed wing, executive helicopters, no-fly zones out the yin-yang, etc. It's a super busy area.
 
Mac said:
Not sure about "changes" as the area is "established". This was piss poor planning 50 years ago.

For some reason, no one builds an airport with any foresight. Every freaking airport gets built and people flock to it. If you want to create urban sprawl, build an airport. Then give it a few years and people will complain about airplane noise...smh. Yeah, lots of experience with these turds too.
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I assume flight paths, operating procedure, etc, will be re-racked. Will it fix everything? Probably not.

As for the airport location... I'm sure the power-players were put off having to drive somewhere to get to their jet... That's just inconvenient...
 
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